[TowerTalk] Tower Problems

[Dale M. Schwartz]

Unfortunately, I can top most of these horror stories.  For 25 years I've been a volunteer lawyer for the ARRL and am supposed to be knowledgeable about towers and zoning stuff.  We have helped numerous hams with tower legal problems.  After being off the air for 8 years, I finally bought a 55' motorized, tilt-over tower from a ham who was moving to a condo in Florida.  I had my guys dig a 5' deep hole, installed the mounting bolts, rebar cage, and filled it full of 48 bags of concrete which we had to mix ourselves in a rented concrete mixer. Started the concrete at 4 pm. At 8:30 pm we ran out of sacks of concrete mix and the hole was only 1/2 full!  We rushed to the store and got there just as Home Depot was closing. Had to beg them to sell us 45 more bags of the stuff. Got it just in time. We didn't finish pouring the concrete until 1 a.m.   
	 Three weeks later (I had been out of town) we erected the tower. Then my next door neighbor pointed out to me that I had violated the side-line restrictions on erecting towers, and if the tower ever fell over, it would hit his house.  He was absolutely correct.  Rather than fight him and city hall, we dug a new hole and started all over further back in the yard.  Now all is well.  But of all people, I should have known better!
	 Abraham Lincoln said: "He who represents himself in legal matters has a fool for a client."  He was so right <g>.

					Dale   K4ROZ